Abstract: Rockburst is a sudden dynamic hazard resulting from the combined effects of high in situ stress, excavation-induced unloading, dynamic disturbance, and geological structures in deep underground engineering. This review synthesizes advances in Realistic Failure Process Analysis (RFPA) in four areas: rockburst types and mechanics, its position among numerical methods, theoretical and technical developments, and engineering applications. Strain, fault-slip, discontinuity-slip, and composite rockbursts are distinguished by their dominant energy sources and failure mechanisms. Their occurrence is interpreted using stress, energy, and instability criteria, together with intrinsic and external controls. The capabilities and limitations of FEM, FDM, DEM, FDEM, XFEM, phase-field fracture methods, and RFPA are compared. Method selection should reflect the problem scale and target process because no single method is optimal for every rockburst problem. RFPA combines finite-element stress analysis with statistical heterogeneity, elastic-damage constitutive laws, stiffness degradation, and stress redistribution. It thereby simulates progressive failure from localized damage to macroscopic fracture and instability. RFPA-Dynamics, RFPA^3D, and RFPA^3D-CT extend this framework to static-dynamic coupling, digital reconstruction of real structures, and complex underground excavations. Recent studies have progressed from mechanism interpretation to full-process simulation, monitoring integration, and risk assessment. Key challenges include multiscale parameter calibration, three-dimensional meshing and model reduction, large-scale parallel computing, artificial-intelligence-assisted modelling, multiphysics coupling, and monitoring-based early warning. This review therefore clarifies the distinctive capabilities and application boundaries of RFPA in rockburst analysis.